by P. E. Ryan
“Really? Aces,” Mike said. “I’ve still got some pamphlets in the trunk from the last time I did this. I’ll call the organization tomorrow and make sure they’re still current.” They’d reached the Camaro.
“What about my job? And the shelter?” Garth asked, suddenly remembering he still had a life to tend to.
“What about them?”
“Well, they take up time. We’d have to work around them.”
Mike thought about it. “I can’t speak for the dogs, but as for the store—what’s it called again?”
“Peterson’s”
“You hate working there, don’t you?”
“How could you tell?”
“Because it’s written all over your face when you talk about it.”
“I do,” Garth confessed. “I loathe it.”
“What’s that, fifteen hours a week? At minimum wage?” Mike drummed his fingers on the top of the car and did some quick calculations in his head. “Quit.”
“Quit my job?”
“The money we pull in will more than make up for your salary, I guarantee it. And I can front you whatever spending money you need.”
“But don’t I have to give, like, two weeks’ notice?”
“That’s a myth created by bosses.”
“I don’t know,” Garth said. Just thinking about the idea made his stomach clench with nervous excitement. “Mr. Peterson wouldn’t be too happy about that. He’s pretty cranky.”
“All the more reason. Don’t be intimidated by him; just tell him you’re out of there. And keep that a secret, too.” Mike got in behind the wheel.
Garth felt himself grin as he pulled open the passenger door. The visit to the bookstore, Adam’s phone number in his pocket, the prospect of being free of Peterson’s, and bringing in some money…
Aces, as Mike would put it.
6
The next morning, both his mom and Mike were gone by the time he got up. A note slipped under his door read: “Out of your hair today. Need to take care of some business.—Mike.”
He poured himself a bowl of cereal and ate it in front of the television. Then he dragged the building’s trash cans from the curb to their spot in the backyard (yet another duty that shaved a little off the rent). Finally, he stole away to his room and, even though he knew he was alone in the apartment—save for Hutch, who was sprawled across the living room couch—he closed and locked the door so that he could look at his “bag of gay goodies.”
The local gay newspaper Mike had picked up for him had a headline article about a lesbian couple fighting for custody of their son—the kid’s natural dad wanted nothing to do with him, but the paternal grandmother was trying to snatch him out of his mom’s arms (the court verdict was yet undecided). Another article was about a teenager in the Tidewater area who was suspended from school for wearing a T-shirt that read: GOD IS GAY. “Prove me wrong,” David, a sixteen-year-old, was quoted as saying. “Tell me who I’m hurting and I’ll apologize to them face-to-face. Otherwise, back off!” On another page were the results of a survey on sex combined with alcohol consumption, and opposite that, an advertisement for something called a “foam party” in Washington, D.C. The ad was flanked with shirtless men, some wearing baseball caps, all of them good-looking but most way too muscular for Garth’s taste. Which made him wonder, did he even have a taste?
He examined the novels Mike had bought for him. Nothing about custody battles or circuit parties to be found there, though one of them was about a gay teenager caught up in the struggle to get himself and his younger sister away from an abusive, alcoholic dad. A little heavy for summer reading, Garth thought. The next novel was about a gay teen, his straight sister, and their competition for the same “new kid” at school. And the third was called Tale of Two Summers—what looked like a hilarious blog exchange between two best friends who were spending their first summer apart in different cities. That one he left at the top of the stack.
But where to put the stack? None of this stuff could sit out in the open, because if his mom saw any of it, she’d know they’d gone to the gay bookstore and that he wasn’t exactly sticking to his promise. Looking for a hiding place made him angry all over again. Why couldn’t his mom see things—understand things—the way Mike did? Why should he have to hide who he was? Adam Walters certainly wasn’t hiding, and he didn’t look any worse off for it. He looked happy, in fact. Resentfully, Garth shoved the newspaper and the books into the back of his closet (there was irony for you), then stood for a moment with the DVD in his hand, gazing down at the title.
Beautiful Thing.
One of Adam’s favorite movies. Which was almost the only thing Garth knew about him. Well, that and his desire to make films. And his phone number. The slip of paper was still folded up and tucked into Garth’s wallet, like a cookie fortune you wanted to keep so that it might have a chance to come true—though he wasn’t sure if he would ever get up his nerve to call. Chances were Adam was just being polite and had given out his number only because Mike had been so forward. He probably had no intention of coming over.
Still, if Garth watched the movie now (which he very much wanted to do, having the house to himself), would that cancel out the chances that Adam might possibly, by some slim chance, accept the invitation if he did get up his nerve to call?
Superstition is for crazy people, he thought.
But he left the DVD unopened and stowed it behind his laundry basket, on top of the newspaper and books.
“So what’s the word on your brother’s drama?” Garth asked.
“Um, where were you yesterday?” Lisa replied.
He’d called Ms. Kessler and left her a message, but he suddenly realized he’d forgotten to call Lisa. “Oh—sorry. Mike asked me to go shopping with him.”
“He couldn’t go by himself? Did he need you to hold his hand?”
“Don’t be mean. We were just hanging out, that’s all. How was it at the shelter?”
“Great, if you weren’t the only person there cleaning out twelve cages, dealing with a neurotic Doberman and a pit bull with a bladder problem.”
“Wait, you were alone?”
“Hello? My partner—that would be you, the one who talked me into volunteering at the shelter in the first place?—bailed on me.”
“I left a message with Ms. Kessler. I thought she’d get someone to replace me.”
“Didn’t happen.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “So—what’s the news on your brother?”
“Same as before. He wants to have the baby; his girlfriend wants to have the baby; my parents prefer to have a cow. How was the shopping?”
He could hear the irritation in her voice. While she could toss out insults right and left, she wasn’t one to overlook even the smallest of slights. “To be honest,” he said, “this really cool thing happened. Mike took me to that gay bookstore.”
“The store I told you about?”
“Yeah.”
“The store I offered to take you to, since you were too scared to go by yourself?”
“I don’t think I ever said I was ‘too scared.’ Anyway, he took me and bought me all this cool stuff. And I met a friend of yours there.”
“Who?”
“Adam Walters.”
“Oh! Adam’s great. A total sweetheart. He’d never leave me alone with a dozen dirty dogs.”
“I said I was sorry!”
“I’m just giving you a hard time. Seriously, though, Adam’s cool. He has ‘honesty issues,’ but he’s a good guy. And gorgeous.”
“What are ‘honesty issues’?”
“He tried to date a guy last year who turned out to be a pathological liar. Now he says he doesn’t know if he can ever trust anyone again, romantically.”
“What did the guy lie about?”
Lisa laughed. “Being single, for one thing. Anyway, I could totally see you two as a couple.”
“Right. He’s about a foot taller than me.”
&n
bsp; “Who cares? Tell me you don’t think he’s hot.”
“He is. But that’s not the point. I’m just saying, I met him at the store and we talked. He told me about how he wants to make movies.”
“Yeah, I call him Orson Smells.”
“Very mature.”
“Hey, he calls me Diane Arbutt.”
“Anyway, he gave me his phone number.”
“Seriously? Are you going to call him?”
“I don’t know. What would I say?”
“How about ‘Hi, uberhottie that I just met. Want to have lunch?’”
“Shut up.”
“Not my specialty. I am happy for you. I just wish you had let me be the one who ushered you into gaydom, since I offered first.”
“It sort of happened on impulse.”
“Uh-huh. And how does this affect the pact you made with your mom?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t tell her.”
“But Mike knows?”
“About the pact? Yes, he knows. He thinks it’s crazy.”
“Well, so do I. But I also think it’s a little weird that he’d take you there knowing it’s not what your mom wanted.”
“As you just pointed out, you offered to take me there.”
She clucked her tongue. “Yeah, but I’m an irresponsible teen.”
She’s jealous, he thought. And she’s mad that I didn’t show up at the shelter. He decided to drop the subject—and to not mention the charity work (she’d have plenty to say about that, for sure). It was funny how the people with the toughest exteriors were sometimes the ones whose feelings got hurt so easily.
As promised, Mike “fronted” Garth some spending money—fifty dollars, which was nearly a month’s worth of what he allowed himself—and on Saturday, per his uncle’s suggestion, Garth worked his last shift at Peterson’s Department Store. He commemorated the event by unlocking and rolling up the garage door of the trash pocket in order to liberate as many mice and rats as possible, but they didn’t seem very interested in leaving (which made sense when he thought about it—why give up the safety and convenience of all that rotten food for the big, unknown world?).
“Rhhuudd,” Mr. Peterson said as he was about to clock out. “Truck’s coming in next Saturday. I need you to work.”
“I’ve already made plans.”
“Got to cancel them. It’s a big shipment.”
“Um.” Garth punched his card, put it back into its metal slot, and stared up at the old man. He knew what he was about to do was abrupt, but he also heard the echo in his head of Mr. Peterson’s voice saying, “Scrub those faggot words off the bathroom wall.” And once, while complaining about a customer who’d returned a humidifier, the word uppity had rolled out of his mouth, followed by the N word. “I quit,” Garth said.
Mr. Peterson’s lined face went slack with what seemed to be confusion, then slowly pruned into a scowl. “You ever had a job before this one?”
“No.”
“If you don’t give two weeks’ notice, I don’t have to issue a check for this pay period. How’s that sound?”
Garth was fairly certain that wasn’t true—or legal. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said, surprised at his own boldness. “I quit today, you pay me for the hours I’ve worked, and I won’t call the Health Department about the mouseketeer club in the storeroom, the kitchen, and the popcorn machine. How does that sound?”
Peterson gauged him for a moment, and his scowl leveled off into a smile that was a half sneer at best. He reached forward to shake Garth’s hand, but with his other hand he took hold of Garth’s elbow and squeezed sharply. He knew what he was doing; the pain shot from Garth’s arm into his chest and even down his legs. “Guess we’ve got each other figured out,” the man said, still squeezing his elbow. “You’re not Peterson material.”
“Lucky me,” Garth said, wrenching his arm free.
“You can pick up your check next week.”
“Thanks,” Garth said. For better or for worse—even if the charity work was a flop—he was forever free of The Trash Pocket.
Sunday afternoon, Garth rode his bicycle downtown and chained it up next to the footbridge that led out to Belle Isle. Dressed in his bathing suit, T-shirt, and flip-flops, he walked across the bridge listening to the thunder of traffic overhead—a sound that was gradually replaced by the rush of the James River as he neared the opposite shore. All along this stretch of the island were rocks—light brown and worn smooth over centuries, perfect for lying out in the sun. And there was a lot of sun—too much of it, in fact; by the time he reached Lisa, he was drenched in sweat.
She had her eyes closed and was stretched out on her back on a bright blue towel. She’d brought her camera, of course, and her cell phone, and her iPod—all laid out alongside her in case she needed them. He set his towel down next to hers, kicked off his flip-flops, and quietly picked up her camera.
When she heard the click, she lifted her head and glared at him. “Did you just take my picture?”
“I did,” he said. “You look like a model.”
“As if you’d know.”
“Hey! I can still tell whether or not a girl’s hot, even if I don’t go for them.”
“Don’t ever do that again. Photographers should only take their own portraits. The ones who are artists, anyway.”
He sat down on his towel and pulled his shirt over his head. “That sounds like a rule you made up for yourself.”
“Artists need to make up their own rules. They can’t follow the existing rules because it would make them—”
“Yeah, yeah. Soulless. I’ve heard it before. Could it be any muggier out here?”
“A few more years of global warming, it’ll be muggier.”
“I’m going to dunk myself to cool off.”
“Okay,” she said. “But hurry up, because I have big news to tell you.” She rolled over onto her stomach and closed her eyes again.
He worked his way from one rock to the next, farther and farther out (impossible to do when the water level was higher), and when he ran out of rocks, he sat down, held on with his hands, and sank his legs in. The water was chilly, despite the heat, and he felt the current tugging gently at his feet. He stayed like that for several minutes before easing down into water up to his shoulders; then he pulled himself out and stood dripping on the sunbaked surface of the rock. It was the closest he’d ever got to swimming since his dad had died. Not that he was afraid of drowning, but the idea of enjoying himself in or on the water just felt wrong somehow. A pair of kayakers threaded past, bound for the rapids that started farther south. One of them waved at him; he raised a hand in response.
Hello.
Be careful.
Where the hell are your life vests?
“So,” Lisa said when he got back, “my news.”
“You have a new boyfriend.”
“Who told you?”
“No one. A new boyfriend is always your news. Besides, it’s been, what, two weeks since you’ve dated anyone? That’s quite a dry spell for you.”
“You make me sound like a slut.”
He grinned. “A virgin slut.”
“Anyway, don’t you want to know who it is?”
“Who?”
“The one and only—” She paused for dramatic effect. “Billy Fillmore.”
Garth drew a blank for a moment. Then he said, “The quarterback?”
“Halfback.” She extended her neck and smiled proudly.
“You’re dating a jock?”
“Tell me you aren’t jealous.”
He thought about it. “I’m not.”
“Oh, come on! He’s gorgeous!”
“Not my type.” Garth shrugged.
“Having never dated anyone, you don’t get to have a type.”
“That was harsh.”
“It was, wasn’t it? Sorry. I try to spare you my mean side. I’ll be making it up to you in a few minutes, in any event.”
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind, it’s a surprise,” she said, smoothing out her towel. “I can’t believe you don’t think Billy Fillmore is droolworthy. Wait till you get to know him.”
“I’m not sure I want to.”
“Why?”
“Well, have you ever seen those movies about Vietnam, where the soldiers don’t want to get to know any of the new recruits because they probably aren’t going to survive for very long?”
“Wow. Now who’s being harsh?”
He grinned and said, “Me, for a change.”
“Oh! Here comes your surprise.” Her eyes darted toward the path that led from the footbridge.
Garth looked over and saw Adam Walters approaching them.
Adam had a towel in one hand, his shirt in the other. He wore only bright red bathing trunks and a pair of sneakers.
Garth turned back and glared at Lisa.
“Your uncle isn’t the only one who can help you come out,” she told him.
“Hi,” Adam called as he drew near. “You guys were easy enough to find.” His dense sandy hair flashed in the sun.
“My favorite spot on the island,” Lisa said, stretching out. “I think you’ve already met Garth.”
“Yeah. We go all the way back to…Wednesday.” Adam smiled and reach a hand down toward Garth.
Garth got to his feet—and immediately regretted it because of how much taller Adam was than him. He was self-conscious, too, about his hair (unwashed and unruly), about his legs (ultraskinny, like pipe cleaners), and about his stomach (which was flat enough but soft, and absent of the ridges he could see in Adam’s). “Hi,” he said, shaking the hand. “I—I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Me either. Till about an hour ago.”
“The magic of cell phones,” Lisa said.
Adam glanced at the wet footprints still visible on the rock. “Looks like one of you has already been in the water.”
“Just to cool off,” Garth said. “The water’s actually pretty cold.”
“I guess I’ll bake myself for a little while first.” He spread his towel out on the rock next to Garth’s and lay down on his back. After a few moments, he rolled over with his head turned away. “I had to wash both my parents’ cars this morning,” he muttered. “Guess it was the head start on my tan.”